Help with royal icing - glycerine or not?

[WobblyLondoner]

Making my first Xmas cake this year. All well so far, but now need to ice the thing!

I have read varying stories of what happens when you don't use glycerine but was intending to go down that route as we will need to transport the cake for 4-5 hours (covid permitting) and had heard that this would make it easier not to ruin the icing.

Then I heard Prue Leith on desert island discs telling a story about her teeth shattering first attempt at royal icing - and I'm losing my nerve.

Any suggestions - would you use glycerine or not? Just to complicate things, I do have glycerine but it's a vegetarian one.

I’ve never used glycerine. I use a ratio of 2 large egg whites to 500g icing sugar. It’s firm and feels hard but honestly, there’s no risk of broken teeth.

Glycerin is a humectant - meaning it absorbs water from the atmosphere, not so much it runs off the cake but soft enough to enable the icing to melt in the mouth and not go as hard as bricks. Be confident in it's use MyCat.
Good luck!

Thank you both. I have given it a go without glycerin. Will report back on any breakages (teeth, knife etc).

I'm quite pleased with the result if I say so myself ..

I'm going to have to make my royal icing as the shops don't seem to have the bags of the icing sugar mix. When I have made it before, it's gone quite runny, and I wondered to those in the know, if this was due to me overmixing?

Your cake looks really good @WobblyLondoner I used to love those silver balls but sadly they react with my fillings

Thanks @longtompot. I used this recipe - it all worked fine except that I forgot to add the lemon juice (doh). The icing started to set quite quickly.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/christmascakeicing_2360

@longtompot. When mixing royal icing, break up the egg whites first, then add sieved sugar a quarter at a time beating well each time. When adding the last quarter do it in stages beating well each time. You should aim to get it to form soft peaks when pulled up from the surface with your spoon. It is critical that all bowls, utensils etc are absolutely fat free or the icing won't ever go white and form peaks. Lemon juice will whiten it a bit but does make it more brittle

Thank you all. I actually had success this year. I did the icing with Mary Berry's gingerbread house recipe and it worked! I did 1/2 tsp orange extract 1/2 glycerine and two of lemon juice to 3 med egg whites and 675g icing sugar and it's set really well. My gingerbread biscuits however kept falling over and seems their trunks stayed damp in the icing and broke.